These are the ten films that stick out in my mind as either scaring the living crap out of me when I first saw them, or totally freaking me out.

01. The Shining
An abusive husband, his wife and their psychic son take care of a haunted hotel over the winter, but the isolation becomes too much pressure.

02. The Exorcist
Based on William Peter Blatty’s novelization of a real case of possession that happened to a young girl in Mt. Ranier, MD, a Washington Suburb.

03. When a Stranger Calls
High school student Jill Johnson is traumatized over an evening of babysitting by a caller who repeatedly asks, “Have you checked the children lately?” After notifying the police, Jill is told that the calls are coming from inside the house…

04. Friday The 13th
Many years after two summer camp councilers are killed at Camp Crystal Lake, the owner decides to reopen, which sparks a series of grisly murders.

05. A Nightmare on Elm Street
In the dreams of his victims, a specteral child murderer with a glove made of razors on his right hand stalks the children of the members of the lynch mob that killed him.

06. Candyman
Helen Lyle is a student who decides to write a thesis about local legends and myths. She visits a part of the town, where she learns about the legend of the Candyman, a one-armed man who appears when you say his name five times, in front of a mirror.

07. Seven
A film about two homicide detectives’ desperate hunt for a serial killer who justifies his crimes as absolution for the world’s ignorance of the Seven Deadly Sins.

08. The Sixth Sense
A boy who communicates with spirits that don’t know they’re dead seeks the help of a disheartened child psychologist.

09. The Grudge
An American nurse living and working in Tokyo is exposed to a mysterious supernatural curse, one that locks a person in a powerful rage before claiming their life and spreading to another victim.

10. Saw
With a dead body laying between them, two men wake up chained to pipes at opposite ends of a dirty utility room in the secure lair of a serial killer who’s been nicknamed “Jigsaw” by the police because of his unusual calling card.